What they Forget
by DemonKittyAngel
Summary: We all know the story of how Kikyo died but there's something we all forget.


I'm not dead. 'College ate my life.' is my official catch phrase recently but I've been wanting to write something for a while. Sorry for long hiatus.

I wanted to write something that's very different for me before I work back into a long story so I can find my rhythm again. More explanation on why I wrote this specifically at the bottom.

I own nothing but my own perspective and rambling author notes.

* * *

Kikyo is seventeen.

Her birthday is in two months. Two far to be 'just around the corner' but too soon to hold no significance.

Kaede is eleven.

She has just started to truly know the world and Kikyo has always watched out for her. When their mother died in childbirth, Kikyo became 'Mother'.

Kikyo is in love.

The hanyou, for all his gruffness, has a soft side she can see right through. He's never acted worse than a common thug and she knows he was treated that way first.

InuYasha has no place.

He is neither Demon nor Human. He is feared by one and looked down on by the other.

Kikyo is the same.

She is human, yet separate. A Miko is always more than the villagers no matter how much she does with them. They see it as grace from a higher being so she holds her head high and does her best because this is how things are.

The villagers worship her.

They have such a powerful Miko protecting them. She alone was selected to guard the sacred jewel and time and again, when evil has sought out that powerful gem, she would save them.

Kikyo is a healer.

Before she was a priestess who would fight - as most priestesses are not - she was a priestess who could heal. It is her favorite duty since she never feels more useful than when she cradles a life in her hands and is able to make it bloom.

Men ask for her hand.

She turns them all down politely claiming that her duty comes first so she cannot have a family, but the truth is they will never understand her.

Kikyo is conflicted.

She doesn't hate demons. At times she thinks she was likely to enjoy their company more than humans. Her fellow humans who tell her that all demons are evil and she should hunt them out like her father used to.

Her father is dead.

He has been for four years. He had often gone into the surrounding forests to force out (kill) demon nests that were too close to the village.

Kikyo has responsibilities.

Her father died when she was thirteen and the protection of the village fell to her. She was given the jewel when she was fifteen and knows she will guard until her very end. She has always raised her sister. She teaches the children about plants. She holds the village together.

InuYasha is a distraction.

When she finds a quiet moment with the hanyou, she feels like just a girl in love ready to start a family with the man she loves.

Kikyo nurses a bandit.

It is part out of kindness and part for relief. He makes leud comments and shows no appreciation for her work. A part of Kikyo enjoys being treated as a slab of meat because for once she's not being looked up to.

Kaede disapproves.

Kikyo understands this but tells her sister to ignore him. The part she won't speak of craves his harsh words. Just a few a day to remind her she's human.

Kikyo feels disconnected.

She's forgotten she's human at times. When she stands beside InuYasha and he unwittingly brings up the species difference between the two of them she's often shocked and has to calm herself. With how she's treated by humans and demons, she had forgotten that she was a part of either group.

InuYasha makes a promise.

Kikyo knows that it's hard for him to imagine being human. He's chased the dream of being a demon and gaining respect through power and fear that the concept of being respected for being a good man escapes him.

Kikyo trusts InuYasha.

That is why she cannot comprehend his betrayal. She can't picture this as InuYasha. He had promised. But she knows that he has always wanted power and after the first bit of doubt sets in, her heart shatters.

InuYasha belittles her.

He tells her he only ever wanted the jewel and unlike the corrosive but comforting burn of Onigumo's insults these slice through her like a demon claw. Which is exactly what InuYasha has done but the ones through her heart hurt so much more than the ones that bleed through her clothes.

Kikyo steals her resolve.

InuYasha is not himself. She knows him better than to believe this is truly him and when she shoots him, pinning him to the tree through his heart, she does it to save him from whatever took over his mind.

InuYasha looks at her in betrayal.

Like she's the one who started this or she should have wanted him to have the jewel. Kikyo dismisses this. Her holy arrow has lifted the enchantment from him and he doesn't know what's going on. But that's ok. She's coming with him.

Kikyo is very aware of her own mortality.

Ever since she recieved the jewel she was sure she'd never see thirty years of age and often doubted twenty. She was right. Barely holding herself up and her sides together so leaves this world with no regrets. She knows that InuYasha and herself will meet again in the next life and Kaede has agreed to burn it with her body.

She blames the jewel.

She always knew she'd have it to her death and that there was almost no chance it wouldn't cause hers. She blames it for InuYasha's lost mind and wishes it to hell.

Kikyo dies a hero.

She is remembered for years and years as the greatest Miko the lands have ever known. She is remembered for her tremendous power and her gift in healing. Her sister strives to do her memory proud and takes over as village priestess because she will not abandon the town her sister loved.

But what everyone forgets is that she was young.

* * *

This was both a challenge and a curiosity to myself.

I've always hated Kikyo and my main grievance is that she's still holding onto a piece of Kagome's soul. I started thinking about this when I first read the resurrection of Kikyo. When she fell off the cliff she couldn't be driven just by revenge. She had to have a bit of soul left in her and a desire to live.

It wasn't until I was a bit more grown up that I realized just how young she was. Kagome is fifteen during the series and Kikyo appears to be nearly the same age. This means that Kikyo wasn't much older than fifteen when she died. I'm not sure if the ages for Kikyo and Kaede are officially listed somewhere so I took some creative license.

As far as killing off their parents goes dying by childbirth was not unheard of or particularly uncommon and I've always seen their father as a monk and that's where they inherited their powers from. Kikyo was obviously the village Miko in the flashbacks so her father must be dead by then and the title passed to her.

We get so caught up in Kikyo's current actions in the series that I felt she was judged too harshly when she was seen as the bad guy.

Looking through her actions and thinking of her situation led me to only one conclusion: she was young.

This was a challenge to myself to write a character I didn't like in a positive light and paired with the tragedy that is Kikyo it was actually a great experience.

_Would you like more chapters with different characters views on the events in their lives? And was this successful?_


End file.
